


What We Did Right

by bluflamingo



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Deaf Character, F/M, Gen, Kid Fic, Teaching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-15
Updated: 2015-04-15
Packaged: 2018-03-23 03:46:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3753289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluflamingo/pseuds/bluflamingo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint and Natasha meet when she picks up her daughter from Clint's classroom, and talk out how they'll make it work</p>
            </blockquote>





	What We Did Right

**Author's Note:**

> Written for ohmydarlingdear, who gave me awesome prompts that included Deaf Clint, teacher AU where where one is a parent of a child in the other's class and they meet when she's late due to a mission, and bisexual characters. I also threw in some past Maria/Natasha and Clint/unnamed male for the sake of the plot.

Clint was grading papers and ignoring the wall clock when the light by the door flashed at the same time as the door itself opened. He was expecting it to be the school admin, come to remind him that they did actually need to lock up the place and go home at some point, which was his excuse for being completely thrown when a red-haired woman rushed in instead. 

Olivia, sat reading by Clint's side, looked up at the movement, and flung herself out of her chair before Clint could say anything, signing, "Mama."

The woman – Olivia's other mom, Maria's ex-partner, presumably – crouched down to catch Olivia in her arms, chin pressed to her shoulder. Clint watched her mouth move, "Hello, my darling," and then she turned her head slightly so he couldn't read her lips. She had pretty hair, dark red curls brushing her shoulders.

And, wow, not really appropriate to be kind-of-sort-of checking out the parents when they were hugging their kids. Clint carefully closed his grading book, checked his shirt collar, and made his way round the desk to where Olivia was explaining who Clint was to her mom.

"Hello," Olivia's mom signed, her hands moving a little stiffly, as though she hadn't done it in a while. "Natasha Romanoff, I'm sorry to be late. I was held up at work."

Clint shook her hand, unsurprised to look down and find Olivia had already gone back to her reading. She was such a bookworm, far more than any other seven year old Clint had ever taught. "You're Olivia's mom?" He spoke as he signed, Ms Romanoff's eyes flicking from his mouth to his hands. 

She nodded. "Maria said you'd be expecting me to pick up Olivia." She gestured to her daughter, one sleeve shifting to show a flash of bandage. That made more sense, then; Clint didn't know exactly what Maria did for a living, but he knew it was dangerous, and frequently pulled her away so that their babysitter ended up coming for Olivia. Apparently Ms Romanoff worked there too.

"You'll be doing the pick-ups alongside her now?"

Ms Romanoff smoothed her sleeve, casually recovering the bandage, and nodded. Clint waited a beat for a further explanation that didn't come, then found he didn't have anything to say without it. Ms Romanoff's mouth quirked the tiniest amount, like she knew it too. Clint felt his face flush, his left hand coming up to wave meaninglessly in a way he hadn't done since his first day teaching, when one of the kids had asked how he lost his hearing and he'd completely forgotten the child-friendly explanation he'd worked out when he was still in college. 

"I should take my daughter home now," Ms Romanoff signed, something in her expression suggesting she was teasing him. "Thank you for staying late with her."

"We usually ask that parents contact us if they're going to be late," Clint told her, glad to be back on professional ground. "And that we have your contact details, for the same reason."

"Mr Barton," Ms Romanoff signed, using the same name sign as the kids used for him, "Are you asking for my number?"

Clint had a safely professional, mildly flirtatious response all ready – parents flirted, sometimes, especially the ones who'd run into him while he was on dates – but he swallowed it back at the last minute. Ms Romanoff just... didn't seem like she meant it, somehow. Like it was a show she was putting on, and he wanted to show her something back, tell her that he knew how it was to be performing normality and wouldn't judge if she didn't want to bother. 

That was much worse than thinking she had pretty hair, he was sure. 

"Only for our administrator," he signed, doing his best to keep his tone of voice neutral when he couldn't hear the words coming out of her mouth. "Olivia-" he gave her a quick wave to catch her attention – "You can borrow that one if your mom says it's all right."

Olivia grinned when her mom signed yes, clutching the book with one hand and signing thank you with the other. 

Ms Romanoff gave Clint a long, serious look while she waited for Olivia to gather her coat and bag, but in the end, just signed, "I'm glad to have finally met you," and said goodbye. 

*

Clint got why parent-teacher evenings were a thing, but honestly, he'd done his first one at teacher education college ten years ago, and been done with them ever since. It was a little easier since he started working for the Manhattan School for the Deaf – at least most of the parents either signed or knew the basics of deaf communication etiquette – but it was too many people, too much background noise that he couldn't really hear and too much communication, and by the last half hour, Clint's head was pounding.

And then the classroom door opened and Olivia's parents walked in. Maria looked like she did every time Clint saw her, sharp hair and neat suit, Olivia's right hand in her left. Ms Romanoff – Natasha, she'd told Clint to call her a couple of times – was on Olivia's other side, dressed in jeans and a soft looking sweater, hitching herself along on crutches and squinting a little from the black eye that her make-up didn't entirely cover. 

Clint signed, "Are you all right? What happened?" before he could stop himself. There'd been the bandage, the first time they'd met, and a wrist injury once that she'd said was just a sprain, but crutches was serious.

Olivia tapped Clint's hand and, when he focused down on her, signed, "Mama got hurt at work. She was chasing a bad guy."

On the edge of Clint's vision, Maria and Natasha were exchanging a series of looks that clearly meant something to them and, from the way Maria glanced at him, were also somehow about Clint. "That sounds very brave," Clint signed back to her. "But it looks like it hurt," he added, glancing up to her parents and finding Maria looking back at him with a knowing expression. 

Next to her, Natasha pressed a hand to her face, half-hiding a smile.

"Can I go play with the other kids?" Olivia asked, oblivious to the adults. "Mr Barton said he brought his dog."

And back to at least faking professionalism, which Clint failed at every time he was around Natasha. "Ms Bishop is keeping Lucky company, down in the gym," he told Olivia, then explained, in case Maria hadn't done so for Natasha yet, "Lucky failed hearing dog training school, but he's been with me for years, and he's great with the kids. Ms Bishop knows him well; she has him in her kindergarten class a couple of times a month."

Natasha nodded, and Maria signed for Olivia to go, that they'd come get her once they were finished with Clint. 

"Why don't we sit?" Clint offered when the door closed behind her. "There's a standard rubric for doing these, or if you prefer, we can start with any questions or comments you wanted to share." He opened up his grading book, and concentrated on talking about their daughter, instead of on how much he wanted to offer to make Natasha some tea, get her a cushion for her leg, find her a sweater since the room was kind of chilly...

Yeah, so, maybe Kate had a bit of a point when she mocked him for the crush he had on Olivia's mom.

*

"I'd like to talk to you," Natasha signed. She angled herself so that none of the parents helping their kids gather their things at the end of the day could read her, and so Clint wasn't entirely surprised when she added, "It's nothing about Olivia, or school."

For a second, Clint stuttered over the combination of signs and speech like he hadn't since he was a teenager, all loved up on the college student who lived next door and sometimes said hey when he and Clint passed in the street. To Natasha, he ended up signing, "Do you want to make an appointment?"

Natasha laughed gently, which made the stumble over words feel a bit less stupid. "Maria's taking Olivia ice skating this evening. If you don't have plans, we could buy coffee in the park."

Clint didn't date exclusively amongst the Deaf community and people with strong connections to it, but Natasha's suggestion was part of why he mostly did. Hearing people had a tendency to suggest coffee shops, and the closed in volume of noise turned Clint's world into a bubbly echo of white noise. "I could probably leave in an hour. I could meet you."

Natasha smiled and nodded. "I'll buy the coffee."

When Clint found her on a bench under the big oak tree where he sometimes took the kids on really hot days, she did indeed have take-out coffee, still steaming when she handed it to him. "Thank you," Clint signed, sitting down next to her and accepting the coffee. The steam smelled of chocolate, which was awesome but weird, since Natasha had no way of knowing how he liked his coffee. 

She shifted, angling so they could sign more easily, and signed, "I think we should start with the potentially awkward conversational topics."

Clint had been hoping to start with _did you actually ask me on a date, and if not, what did you ask me on?_ but he could, at least in theory, be flexible. "You first."

Natasha shook her head slightly, still smiling. "Maria, Olivia, my job."

She'd lost her crutches a couple of weeks ago, but gained the shadow of a bruise on her left arm, where the loose sleeve of her shirt almost covered it. Some days she'd pick up Olivia and not speak to anyone, and some days she wouldn't turn up, although she'd said she would. Clint knew he saw the bad parts of her job, but he also knew that Olivia was proud of her, and that she and Maria did something important. He couldn't imagine that Natasha would do any job that didn't make a difference on the world.

"Olivia doesn't have your last name or Maria's," he signed, since he'd been given permission to pry, at least a little.

"Kholm," Natasha finger-spelled in return, even though Clint knew the sign for Olivia's last name. "It means Hill, in Russian."

Clint laughed, couldn't help it. That made so much sense, but it was clever too; sneaky. 

"We adopted her when she was a baby," Natasha signed. "Most of that story is classified. She was my first love." She used the sign for Maria's name – that Maria was her first love – hesitated, and then signed Olivia as well. More than one first love; more than one kind of love. 

"Still your lover?" Clint asked. He was definitely prying with that one, but everything Olivia said made it clear Maria and Natasha lived together when they were both in the country, and he preferred not to make a total idiot of himself if he didn't have to.

A cause that wasn't helped by him signing, "Good," when Natasha shook her head. He wanted to reach for her, take her hand, or let her take his. Instead, they just looked at each other, Clint's coffee growing cold on the arm of the bench, where he'd put it so he could sign more easily.

"Now it's your turn," Natasha signed eventually. 

Clint shrugged, gesturing to his ear. Most parents assumed he'd been born deaf, and he generally let them go on assuming, unless they asked, because the story he told the kids was one step above magic, and for adults, even the sanitised story was pretty horrific, something he hated to tell. He would though, if Natasha asked. He thought he'd probably tell her anything.

"The parents gossip about you," she signed instead. Clint raised an eyebrow, surprised; he thought he'd been at the school too long to be interesting any more. "That you're sleeping with, or dating, or married to a man. Sometimes a specific one, sometimes just a man. You're sleeping with, or dating, or married to a woman, and the man is a cover, or you're single and not looking and the man is a cover, or you're fending off unwanted advances from one of three different parents, and the woman, or the man, are covers. Shall I go on?"

Clint shook his head firmly. Natasha was still smiling, and he felt himself smiling back, amused instead of insulted. Apparently, the parents had a much higher opinion of his ability to get a date than was reflected in reality. "The guy – I was seeing him when I joined the school. We broke up after a few months, but Deaf community and GLBT community – lots of overlap. Word got around."

Word, frustratingly, had not seemed to include that he was bisexual, not gay; there'd been what Clint had experienced as a minor ripple when he'd turned up to a school event a couple months after the break-up with a woman. 

"You're single now?" Natasha asked. 

"Can I get back to you on that one?" Clint signed back. "Hoping the slightly mysterious and possibly world-saving woman I met recently might be going to ask me out."

Natasha made an exaggerated considering face. "Seems likely to me," she signed, and reached over with her left hand, her non-dominant one for signing, to take his right hand, sun-warm and close and everything all right.


End file.
